Lost Mines of Phandelver

The party leaves Phandalin at first light. Around midday, their journey was interrupted by an owlbear rampaging from the woods. Later that night, the party sets up camp. During 3rd watch, Amadeus succumbs to the rigor of travel, allowing a small band of bugbears to approach them. Caught unaware, the party suffers through the moonlit skirmish. Speedy the Goblin has an accident in his pants during his first fight, but lives to tell the tale. The rest of the trip to Neverwinter was peaceful.

Once inside Jewel of the North, the party seeks shelter for the evening. They notice the strange looks from townsfolk towards their little goblin squire, and head to a quiet little inn near the Chasm. After breakfast, the party decides to split up to find information about Thundertree, and muster up some assistance. Each adventurer seeks out fellow members of their organization for some insight. After talking to the Zhentarim, Oliver heads to the docks to inquire about purchasing a war elephant delivered from the south. He and the ship merchant agree on a price and date.

Once reunited, the party shares their findings.

Thundertree is definitely infested with undead.

The flora has also become ‘lively’ there.

They could get some cheap scrolls from a shady Red Wizard in the River District, or go a more legal route with a cleric somewhere in Protector’s Enclave.

A few people are familiar with the druid that regularly goes to Thundertree. He normally spends a fortnight there, and returns to Neverwinter for supplies. He hasn’t been seen in Neverwinter for nearly a tenday, so they believe he is there now.

Since Thundertree has been overrun, the Harpers have no interest there. However, there are whispers around town that someone has turned an eye to the ruins. If Clarence is going anyway, they’d like to learn if anything else is going on there.

The party decides to go the legal route, and seek out the cleric Brant Heartstone. The party manages to talk him into joining them. They return to the inn, and prepare for the day’s ride east toward Thundertree Ruins.

After a restful night at the inn, the party decides to discuss the terms for Oliver’s involvment. As the party head to the Townmaster’s Hall to get a document drawn and notarized, Halia approaches Oliver, and offers a place amongst the rank of the Zhentarim. Fang Oliver catches up to the party to complete the paper work.

The party, faced with traveling northeast to the ruins of Thundertree, stop by the stables to acquire some fine horses and tack. They also purchase a cart, and return to Tresandar Manor to retrieve whatever loot they can find.

Down one of the hallways, they encounter a door that they missed during their first trip there. Clarence opens the door and steps in to the barracks to the sight of four bugbears torturing a little goblin. As fighting erupts, the gobln scurries beneath a bunk at the far end of the room. The party dispatches the bugbears, and coaxes Droop the Goblin out from beneath the old bed.

The party “hires” the goblin as a squire. Droop tests his boundaries, and asks if he will be given weapons to fight beside his new friends. Oliver is wary of this proposition, and challenges Droop to a duel in the woods outside the manor. The deft little goblin manages to get some cover and get a hit in before the duel is called. Droop is officially renamed Speedy.

The party sells the remaining loot, and decides to stop in Neverwinter to seek assistance with the undead in Thundertree Ruins.

The pummeled Redbrand leader lies motionless on the floor as the party determines what to do next. Motivated by wealth and acclaim, they decide to clear out the rest of the manor basement. They investigate a storeroom that has been reclaimed as a barracks, and find only a few red cloaks beneath one of the beds. Then Oliver smashes open the door to the north which leads into an empty hallway. At the far end awaits an old copper door covered with a relief of angels, and almost completely covered in green patina. Clarence confidently strides down the hall, and a section of the floor buckles beneath his weight. He is taken by surprise, and almost finds a familiar comfort in the pit below.

After Velox determines the door is not magical, and Jade finds no traps, they proceed into the Tresandar crypts. Three sarcophagi lie at the far end large room, other bones are strewn about at their bases. Velox notes the presence of dark magic here. Amadeus and Oliver return to the cistern room to question Iarno about the crypt. He tells them about the members of the Tresandar family that rest inside the tombs, and how they come to life if anyone ventures to the northern end of the room.

The party decides to get the beds from from the barracks, and place them on the lids of two of the tombs. The party positions themselves as Clarence ventures to the far end of the room, and a skeleton stands before him as expected. The moment they dispatch the skeleton, another one manages to remove the lid and the bed. The adventurers quickly reduces the skeleton to a pile of ash. The third skeleton is unable to free himself from his confines, and the party puts the other bed on top of the first one, making it impossible for the lid to be removed.

The northern door is locked, but Oliver remedies that with brute force. They discover an armory containing an assortment of mundane weapons. The party takes what they can, and returns to the crypt to try the eastern door. As Oliver rushes into the slave pens, he notices two brigands hiding in the shadows, but not before one of them slashes Oliver with a shortsword. Amadeus, Velox and Jade fire into the room as Clarence and Oliver deliver blows in close range.

The moment the skirmish ends, cries for help come from the cells. The party acquires the keys from the still-bleeding brigand guards and frees the woman and children. The Dendrar family is ever grateful for being discovered, and Mirna can only offer a family heirloom that was abandoned in Thundertree years ago when their family was escaping an undead invasion.

The party helps the family back to town, and heads directly towards Townmaster’s Hall. Slidar, severely disappointed in Iarno, promises to bring him to Neverwinter to pay for his crimes. Amadeus accepts the rank of Cloak of the Lord’s Alliance. The party decides to go to the miner’s exchange to talk to Halia. She takes the letter from Black Spider, and gives the party their due.

Glasstaff's Great Escape

As the barrel fire dies down to embers, the party hears footsteps approaching outside the southern door. Amadeus snuffs the lights as everyone takes defensive positions in the darkness. The figure cautiously approaches the open doorway – a moment ago there was a skirmish; now only silence, darkness, and the smell of burnt grain. Clarence attempts to tackle the interloper, but he doesn’t budge. The mercenary Oliver responds by grabbing the half-orc and tossing him into the middle of the room. Discussion is tense, and nearly erupts into a brawl. Amadeus relights the candles, and the contention is removed. The party realizes that Oliver is not wearing the usual Redbrand garb, and Oliver now notices four dead thugs on the floor. Everyone agrees to continue to clear out Glasstaff and the Rebrands once and for all.

Oliver bursts into the alchemy lab, and a small brown rat scurries under the workbench. Oliver pockets a dwarven journal mentioning the Phandelver Pact and Wave Echo Cave. Velox recognizes the lab is being used to distill an invisibility potion, and blindly drinks the work in progress. It does render her invisible, but because it hasn’t yet reached it’s full potency, she knows it will only last a minute or so. The rat peeks out from beneath the table, and the party hears shuffling and closing chests in the next room. The now ethereal wizard sneaks into the private quarters only to notice someone had just escaped through a secret door. Velox gives chase.

Meanwhile, Amadeus is going through Albrek’s personal affects, and finds a letter from the Black Spider. Iarno leads the party to the east side of the crevasse. Amadeus lights up a rock near the north bridge and hands it to Oliver to help see in the dark. Oliver flings the glowing stone towards their prey. As it hurls southward, the party sees the tail of Iarno’s cloak disappear around a corner. The party dashes toward the hallway, and as they turn the corner, a secret door closes shut. They quickly locate the activation lever, and enter the main cellar room only to catch the mage using his staff to fish something out of a cistern.

Oliver charges into Iarno knocking him down to the floor as he loses grasp of his staff. He then strikes Iarno with the magically lit rock, and pins the wizard’s chest beneath his boot. Iarno cries out, and three brigands emerge from an adjacent room to aid him. Swords begin to clash, arrows fly, and evocations crackle as a fury of might and magic ensues. In a final effort to escape his captors, Iarno paralyzes Oliver, teleports across the room, and fires off some magic missiles. But it is too late. The party has already dispatched his henchmen. Jade commands her adorable pseudodragon to attack the Rebrand leader. He is subdued and restrained.

Oliver dives into the cistern to recover whatever it was Iarno was looking for: some emergency supplies. Velox barely manages to contain her grin as she picks up Iarno’s glass staff.

And.. err.. other details

The party took a gander at the small opening Carp lead them to. After returning him to Qelline at the farm, and asking her for one of her carrots, they meander back to the secret entrance. Velox, the ethereal animal commander, summons a rat to investigate the tunnel. After 100 feet, it opens up to a large dark room with stone pillars and two bridges over a deep crevasse that splits the room in two. She senses some magic in the room, but the rat has reached the maximum range, and must return to report back to the bystanders. The party decides to enter.

As Jade leads into the darkness, Amadeus decides to hand her the carrot after casting it in light. Jade continues, but receives some telepathic slander from an unknown source. Clarence, fearless of the deep crevasse, hops onto the weakened bridge that spanned her, and falls into piles of bones, a half-eaten corpse, and a bunch of dander. He notices an old chest down the crevasse, and makes a mad dash that couldn’t be grander.

This caused something large to scurry in the darkness above, ahead of the rest of the party. Jade quickly attaches the glowing carrot to an arrow and lets it fly yander. The carrot arrow flies over the shoulders of an old nothic before it finds a space on the far wall, wedged as a makeshift sconce. The aberration freezes in it’s footsteps. Velox, having studied the rare language of undercommon, negotiates free passage for the party in exchange for a bag of fresh meat. The nothic agrees with the Tiefling demander. It slinks away into the crevasse with his meal, while Amadeus throws Clarence a rope.

As the party decides what to do next, Clarence notices some light peeking out from a nearby door. Velox puts her ear to the door, and hears a rowdy game of dice being played, void of any candor. Jade and Amadeus investigate down the hall, and discover another door that may lead into the same room. Amadeus makes himself appear more Redbrand-er, and tries to pander the drunken ruffians as “Todd the new guy”, as he is talked into taking a swig of their homemade hooch. Amadeus, the seasoned brewmaster didn’t like it at all, but he’s tasted blander. One of the thugs (a philandering lowlander named Alexander van der Kander), turns to take a leak into the crevasse, heading for the door that stands between he and the rest of the party.

Jade sees this from the other door, and quickly whips her dragon dreadlocks to create a concentrated fog sphere with a magical expander in the middle of the room, blinding everyone within. Amadeus is also shrouded in Jade’s cloudy disbander, but rather than reprimand her, he takes a blind crossbow shot. Velox summons flame to her fingertips and places a burning hander brander into the full-bladdered thug forever searing his flesh. Clarence and Jade gerrymander the room with a thunder wave, and a lightning breath respectively. The fog clears. In his attempt to flee the room, the shortest thug runs right into Jade. His sword misses so badly, that he does a lander right in the hallway. Jade dispatches him with a handaxe to the forehead, Amadeus slings some magic missiles, and Velox and Clarence: standers in the doorway, take out the other two.

The party departs Phandalin at first light. Despite all reports otherwise, Triboar Trail is quiet. They find a secure place to camp, and the night passes uneventfully. They locate the foot trail towards Wyvern Tor, and discover a lone orc guarding the entrance to the cave. Velox summons her raven to fly into the cave to assess what lies in wait – an ogre and a few more orcs. Clarence teaches Amadeus the word ‘gold’ in orcish as he prepares his disguise. The guard takes the bait and is quickly dispatched. The party positions themselves strategically ready to quell the orc threat. The ogre managed to get a few massive hits in before the party takes them down.

Once they reach the abandoned village of Conyberry, they locate the banshee’s lair. They approach respectfully, and trade the mirror to use their one question for Garraelle as they promised.

After another quiet trip back to Phalandin, they share the location of the Wizard’s spell book to Garraelle, then go talk to the Alderleaf family out at the farm. Little Carp tells his story about how he was playing in the woods near Tresandar Manor, and some Redbrands emerged from a small cave. They very nearly saw him, but he got away. Carp’s mother, Quelling, trusts the party, and mentions the druid out at Thundertree Ruins. He knows a great deal about this area, and could help the party with their quest.

Carp offers to take the party to the same place in the woods he was almost caught. After a few minutes in the woods, he points to a well-hidden hole amongst a number of rocks.

The party encountered no more trouble on the Triboar Trail. The caravan pulled into Phandalin in the early evening. Sildar mentions Phandalin is home to two inns, He added that he needed a good meal and a soft bed to cure his weariness from travel, so suggested the Stonehill Inn. The party swiftly disregards his recommendation, and follows their nose directly into trouble.

As the party approached the disheveled taproom, four ruffians lounging on the front stoop start trouble. Amadeus and Velox attempt to talk the Redbrands down, and Clarence took the Thaumaturgic intimidation route. This worked for a brief moment as the ruffians stepped aside to allow the party into the Sleeping Giant. But as the party was walking past them, one of them took a cheap shot to the back of Clarence’s head. Skirmish ensued. Once inside, the party got the cheap ale they came for, ruffians notwithstanding.

The party then handles their business with Lionshield and Barthen, and head to the Stonehill for the evening. The inn is pretty busy with townfolk as the day winds down outside. The party takes rooms and a meal, and picks up on a great deal of hearsay from the villagers around them.

In the morning, they go to the Townmaster’s Hall where Wester and Hallwinter and discussing something. The party finds favor in the Townmaster as they agree to take care of the orc raids, and get some information from him about the Redbrands as well. Clarence, being a cleric of Tymora, wants to talk to Sister Garaelle and her recent troubles. She explains her mission to them, and the party agrees to take the comb and talk to the Agatha the banshee on her behalf.

The refreshed party decides to head east. They will seek out the orcs, and retrieve the information for Garaelle in one trip.

The party agrees the hideout must be emptied, not to put an end to the goblin raids, but for material gain. Amadeus disguises himself as a goblin and convinces the sentry to run back to the den for assistance. The goblin is cornered in the tunnel, and taken out quietly.

Jade scouts ahead in the twin pools cave to find three goblins not paying much attention, so the party sneaks up to attack them by surprise. These particular greenskins gave the party a notably difficult time as the adventurers’ spells, arrows, and swings often missed their mark. One of the goblins was taken down at the foot of the steps to the next room, which alerted Klarg and his closest allies.

The party sees nothing but a burning fire and supplies from Lionshield Coster, another trading post in Phandalin. As Jade checks out the scene, Klarg emerges from some barrels, and knocks Jade unconcious with his morning star. Clarence steps up to stabilize Jade, but is quickly knocked out himself. Velox puts the fear of Azuth into the hearts of two goblins and joins Amadeus with the focused attack on the bugbear. Sildar delivers the final blows, and the party secures the plunder.

After resting for some time, the party decides to return some of the stolen goods. They determine the best way to get the barrels out of the cave to ride them out. They throw the barrels into the frontward pool, mount the barrels, break the levees, and ride the wave out to the forest. They deftly maneuvered past the bridge and other obstacles to safety. Once reunited with their original caravan, they continue east towards Phandalin.

After resting at the Moonstone Mask Inn in Neverwinter for some time, the party is approached by Dwarven merchant Gundren Rockseeker. Gundren seems pretty secretive, but Amadues knows Gundren from a few craft brew distribution deals in the past, so they decide to continue the conversation outside behind the inn.

After agreeing on the details, the party sets out at dawn. Gundren and his escort Sildar Hallwinter had left the city some time during the night to take care of some business in Phalandin. After a day marching south, they turn east on the Triboar trail. Later that afternoon, Jade spots two dead horses in the middle of the trail, and cautiously flanks the scene while Velox summons a raven to safely inspect the horses from above.

An arrow flies from the trees along the road, and the party is ambushed just as the horse’s riders were. After an intense skirmish, Clarence uses a booming voice and trembling earth to capture the last attacker who leads the party to Cragmaw Hideout – pointing out the traps that lay in wait along the way. At mouth of the cave, Jade spies a couple goblins poorly holding their post. Amadeus convinces their captive goblin that the party is a group of cave inspectors sent by Cragmaw King Grol himself to ensure the safety of Klarg and his crew.

The party moved quickly past the pack of guard dogs, but they were not unnoticed by the beasts. Their chains weakened as the dogs tried to lunge at Jade. The party finds a beaten human guarded by goblins, and makes quick work of the prisoner’s captors.

Sildar Hallwinter joins the party after talking to them about what happened to them on the way to Phandalin.